


Take a frisbee to the head

by linumlea



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 01:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10606575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linumlea/pseuds/linumlea
Summary: Iwaizumi is dreaming.Or, he thinks he is dreaming. The sway that carries him across the tiny nothingness around him is none-too-gentle, a bit like floating with waves when wind is picking up on the seashore.Muted sounds grit to life and filter through into his slowly rotating mind. 'Hey' digs into his ears impatiently, 'hey Iwaizumi' even more insistent.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hyeyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyeyu/gifts).



> Hello, this is my gift for Hyeyu ([tumblr](http://hweiro.tumblr.com/)) for the Iwaoi Exchange! I went with the 'hurt/comfort' prompt, played around with it a bit, and this is the result. I sincerely hope you will like it!
> 
> Many thanks to [Yurika](http://yurikabluedemon.tumblr.com) ([ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Yurika/works)) for catching my mistakes, countless words of encouragement, and continuous support! You save me, my dude :')
> 
> EDIT:  
> Now this fic has fanart! You can find it [here](https://vivovexo.tumblr.com/post/159585942139/first-date-inspired-by-an-iwaoiexchange-story-by), [Vivovexo](https://vivovexo.tumblr.com/) ([ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diamond_skeleton/works)) has graced me with her drawing skills and I'm honestly crying I love it so much. Check it out!!

Iwaizumi is dreaming.  
  
Or, he thinks he is dreaming. The sway that carries him across the tiny nothingness around him is none-too-gentle, a bit like floating with waves when wind is picking up on the seashore.  
  
Muted sounds grit to life and filter through into his slowly rotating mind. _Hey_ digs into his ears impatiently, _hey Iwaizumi_ even more insistent.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
“Hey, Iwaizumi!”  
  
He sticks the tip of his tongue out and ignores the call. On the tree trunk in front of him the slick black stag beetle moves one of its legs slightly to the right and its wings quiver. His breath shallows and with a speed of shadows moving across the floor during afternoon classes, he raises the net. The sweltering summer heat is dimmed under the shelter of thick canopy of trees.  
  
The beetle moves its left front leg. Iwaizumi lurches forward.  
  
“Ha!”  
  
“Eh? Hey! Iwaizumi, didya catch somethin’?”  
  
“Hell yeah!” He raises the net in triumph. The beetle inside shuffles grumpily, uncharacteristically long legs and wings caught in the mesh. Iwaizumi is gentle as he pries the beetle free and puts it into the plastic box; he lifts it to his eyelevel then, grinning as the beetle shifts its antennae in that patiently dejected swift motion that only beetles can manage. The two boys he has been catching bugs with this afternoon ooh at the sight.  
  
“Cool,” one of them says. Iwaizumi graciously gives him the box to hold, watching with his hands on his hips as his friends admire the beetle he, Iwaizumi, has caught. He is the best bug catcher around here, not to brag.  
  
The boy gives him the box back with a hopeless sigh. The beetle season inches to a close by a day, and only Iwaizumi has been able to find anything worth catching for the past few days. His friends have been coming home with nothing but air and an occasional ladybug in their boxes. But ladybugs are boring, nothing like stag beetles because those are like, the coolest.  Iwaizumi is sure of that.  
  
He tucks the box into the crook of his arm, ready to head home, when the boy stops him.  
  
“Didn’t someone move in next to you, Iwaizumi? My mom said so yesterday.”  
  
Iwaizumi remembers a giant truck standing in the street two days before, and people navigating back on forth between it and the house across the street of his home. He eyed the truck curiously because it was giant and then three people were carrying a piano inside the house, yelling at each other to hold the damn thing right. He heard one of the men groan something about the piano being ‘devil’s balls heavy’, but he had no idea what they meant by that. All the balls Iwaizumi knows are light, like footballs or baseballs. Does that mean devils play some different games? And how could the man know?  
  
Then he shrugged and went off to catch beetles like he usually does.  
  
“Yeah, I guess.”  
  
“My mom said they have a son, have you seen anyone from that house?”  
  
“Nah.” Iwaizumi scratches the back of his neck. He hasn’t been paying attention to that house at all. But, he supposes, if they did have a son and he was their age, maybe he would like to play with them.  
  
Last year there was a new kid in the neighbourhood too, a shy boy that at first only watched them play from the edges of the playground. Iwaizumi had enough of his shyness one day and simply pulled him by the hand straight into the game, and the boy has mashed with them just fine. He is pretty confident that if the new neighbour will want to play, he is going to appear sooner or later.  
  
Sooner is the keyword. Later on, as Iwaizumi marches into his house with a loud “I’m home!”, he stops just at the entrance. There are two pairs of shoes he definitely doesn’t know laying on the floor, and one of them is small enough to be worn by a kid.  
  
He considers them. They have star-shaped patches sewn onto them, and when he slides the door closed, the patches start to glow faintly in the dimness of the hallroom.  
  
“Cool,” he whispers.  
  
His mother’s voice calls him from the main room. He walks in there with his chin raised high, loudly greets a nice looking lady sitting on the couch, and then spots a kid peeking from behind her, a boy his age with wide eyes and a mop of brown hair.  
  
“This is my younger, Hajime,” Iwaizumi’s mom says. “Hajime, why don’t you take Tooru to your room?”  
  
“Sure,” Iwaizumi says, and just like that the boy’s wrist is in his hand and they are crossing the corridor to reach the other side of the house, bare feet’s soft pat on the wooden floor resounding from the white walls of the hallroom.  
  
“Where were we? Ah yes, as I was saying, the school is…” Iwaizumi’s mom’s voice dims the farther away they are and disappears almost entirely when they cross the threshold to Iwaizumi’s room.  
  
The inside is messy like always, yet he makes sure that his desk is clean enough to place the plastic box there. He turns around to see that ‘Tooru’ is gawking as he twists his head to take in the walls plastered with a few posters and a collection of wrappers from Iwaizumi’s favourite gum. Iwaizumi isn’t sure why the kid is so fascinated by any of those things. Iwaizumi’s friends’ bedrooms all look fairly the same.  
  
“I’m Iwaizumi Hajime,” he says. The boy spins in place and gingerly takes the hand Iwaizumi has offered him.  
  
“Oikawa Tooru.”  
  
“D’ya wanna see the beetle I caught today?”  
  
Oikawa blinks. “Beetle?” he asks in a small voice.  
  
“Yeah. I’m the best at catching beetles. It’s a stag beetle, y’know, big one.”  
  
The plastic box in his hands, Iwaizumi sits cross-legged on the floor, Oikawa kneeling next to him and scooting closer to peer inside. His eyes widen when he sees the beetle and Iwaizumi’s chest puffs up with pride.  
  
“Can I hold it?” Oikawa asks suddenly. He is looking straight into Iwaizumi’s eyes, excitement dusting his cheeks pink.  
  
“It’s gonna escape.” Iwaizumi shakes his head. “These bastards are super fast. But,” he says when Oikawa sits back on his legs dejectedly, “we can go hunt for another one tomorrow. I’ll help you catch one for yourself.”  
  
Oikawa grins then, showing off the pearly teeth. With his shiny hair and perfectly straight smile he looks like one of those kids in ads, the ones that are always polite and always perfect. They look artificial, as if they have all been grown on a giant farm and sold to play perfect sons and daughters in ads of toothpaste and food containers.  
  
They all look kinda similar to Iwaizumi, like they lack that something that would make them stick out.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Distantly, Iwaizumi thinks he can pick up a faint smell of summer grass and something far sweeter, almost sickeningly so. It coils around him with a heavy march of an invader, out of place in this little bubble of warm safety.  
  
Something cool touches his forehead and Iwaizumi’s eyelids flutter.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
They go beetle-hunting the next day, just as they promised. Iwaizumi picks Oikawa up from his home, receiving a pat on the head from Oikawa’s father, and a bag of healthy-looking snacks from Oikawa’s mother.  
  
That’s okay, though. He has sneaked a few candies from the cabinet in the kitchen where his mother hides them. They can share them, instead of eating some carrot sticks and cherry tomatoes.  
  
What is going on in adults’ minds, Iwaizumi really doesn’t know. Who eats carrots and tomatoes when going out to play?  
  
They cross the playground and climb the hill behind it. The trees growing there stalk the hill’s steep slope, roots crawling across the forest cover and hiding a whole lot of interesting things, bottles with colorful glass, bird bones, and empty cicadas shells. Once Iwaizumi got lucky - he found a whole skull of what might have been a weasel. Mom screamed when he brought it home and made him throw it away, though.  
  
The beetle hunt goes fine for a while, at least. Oikawa follows him dutifully, and nods when Iwaizumi shows him where it’s the easiest to find the stag beetle Oikawa wants to hold so badly. They move from one end of the hillside to the other, checking out the spots where Iwaizumi has been finding beetles before. Most of them are beetles until Oikawa tugs at the back of Iwaizumi’s shirt and stops him.  
  
“It’s there,” Oikawa says, bubbly with enthusiasm. He snatches the net from Iwaizumi’s hand without asking and bounces forward, through the rustling bushes. Before Iwaizumi has time to as much as make a sound Oikawa is already swinging the net.  
  
It ends up rebounding from the tree and hitting Oikawa in the arm with a loud smack, but Oikawa seems undeterred. He is glaring at the empty net and then up at the tree where the beetle is calmly jostling its wings after flying to escape Oikawa’s attempt.  
  
“Aw, man.” Iwaizumi looks up too. The beetle is way too high for them to reach. He is about to suggest just going to another spot when Oikawa thrust the net into Iwaizumi’s chest and jumps to heave himself up onto a  branch.  
  
“I’m getting that beetle,” Oikawa announces. He is moving to another branch already, placing his feet in odd places.  
  
“Oika- Wait!” But of course Oikawa is not listening, his eyes set on the beetle crawling across the trunk above his head. He is already climbing up, hands reaching out but still a few centimeters short. And then, then Oikawa haphazardly places his foot on a feeble excuse of a branch that bends under his weight.  
  
Iwaizumi can spot the very moment when the branch bends just a little too much and Oikawa glances down, his mouth parting in a distinct ‘oh no’ sort of way.  
  
Iwaizumi flounders a step forward just in time to get an armful of Oikawa falling straight onto him, knocking the breath out of his lungs.  
  
His stomach hurts like that time when the school’s best pitcher threw his fastest ball into Iwaizumi’s belly during one of the school matches. The pain is dull and Iwaizumi just wants to curl up and hide the tears inevitably welling up in his eyes. The back of his head hurts too, even though the fallen leaves cushioned most of the impact.  
  
“Iwa-chan…?”  
  
Iwaizumi heaves a breath at Oikawa’s very hesitant and very apologetic tone. “Get off me,” he says. When Oikawa does, he sits up and smacks Oikawa across the head. He glowers at Oikawa’s tiny ‘ouch’. “What the hell did you do that for? Don’t you know when to quit?! And what’s with ‘Iwa-chan’?”  
  
Oikawa shifts uneasily and then extends his hands curled into a ball. “I got it though,” he says.  
  
“Bet it’s all squashed and dead,” Iwaizumi says, sullen. His stomach hurts. Oikawa is calling him ‘Iwa-chan’ as if they are still kids. This is all very much not the way Iwaizumi thought it would be.  
  
“Nah, I can feel it moving.” Oikawa grins. Only then Iwaizumi realizes that something is very different and someone is so going to be yelled at for it.  
  
“Your tooth,” he says. “What happened to your tooth?”  
  
Oikawa closes his mouth and prods his teeth with his tongue. “Oh,” he says, bewildered. And then he smiles, as wide as possible, his formerly perfect teeth now looking a lot more real with a gaping hole where one of the front ones was. “Oops.”  
  
They both get yelled at and then Oikawa’s mom gives Iwaizumi a few bandaids with spaceships on them. At least Oikawa finally looks like a regular kid and not one of the artificial children from the ads, and he has got his stag beetle that is not at all squashed, and not at all dead, so Iwaizumi supposes it wasn’t a bad day after all.  
  
“Iwa-chan.” Oikawa stops him when Iwaizumi is about to go home, ignoring completely Iwaizumi’s ‘stop calling me that’. “See you tomorrow.”  
  
He ponders at that. “Yeah,” he says finally. “See you tomorrow.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
There is a slowly spiraling column of light in front of him, threads built from tiny particles of dust that reflect and glow like algae that float in the darkness of the ocean. They curl gently in and out of their shape, sometimes little stars, sometimes simple spheres. The tender feeling that ghosts across his skin is nothing like sea water, however. It’s warmer, barely there, a caress he cannot begin to dissect into something more recognizable.  
  
One of the tiny particles of dust disintegrates in front of his eyes in a burst of a song hummed in a low voice.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
It happened sometime later in the summer. The breeze has picked up after a day filled with stifling heat and all the windows in neighbourhood are wide open. Carefully cultivated flowers in gardens are hanging their crowns in apathy, filling the evening air with heavy scents.  
  
Iwaizumi is walking to his home when he hears notes of music filtering through the curtains in  Oikawa’s house, hesitant and sometimes even angry. Curiosity gets the better of him and he simply swings the gate open and walks into the garden, following the path to the back of the house and stopping only to peek inside the main room.  
  
He is kind of surprised to see Oikawa sitting by a piano with a visible frown between his brows, fingers pressing the keys without any rhythm. Iwaizumi feels like he has heard that melody before, but Oikawa is making it almost unrecognizable.  
  
“Hey,” he says, grinning in a little bit of satisfaction when Oikawa jumps in his fancy piano chair. “What’s that song?”  
  
Oikawa does his best to hide how much Iwaizumi has startled him and shrugs, tucking his hands under his legs. “Dunno. Beethoven?”  
  
“The hell is Beethoven?” Iwaizumi asks indignantly and shucks off his shoes as he walks in through the veranda doors. He pushes at Oikawa’s arm until he scoots enough for Iwaizumi to sit next to him on the chair. “Play something cool.”  
  
“I don’t know anything cool,” Oikawa says. His pout is back on his face.  
  
“You can play piano and you haven’t learned anything cool? Why? Don’t you wanna play something cool once sometimes? Like the opening to that show with that superhero and that bad guy with a hat?”  
  
“I’m only playing because mom makes me.”  
  
“Huh. If my mom made me learn piano, I would’ve played what I want all the time. I mean, isn’t it cool? Just being able to play whatever you want.”  
  
He kicks his feet and turns a bit to look at Oikawa. Oikawa is looking at him strangely, with intense concentration on his face.  
  
“Play what I want,” he repeats as if it’s some kind of a grand revelation.  
  
“Yeah. Like.” Iwaizumi draws in a breath and begins humming a song. He is pretty sure he is horrible at this, but he continues anyway. He kinda wants to hear Oikawa playing it.  
  
“Again,” Oikawa says when Iwaizumi finishes. He is pressing his fingers to some keys, figuring it out. It takes them over an hour, and the result is flabby at best, but Oikawa finally plays the whole thing and looks pretty happy about doing so.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Iwaizumi blinks. The column of light dissolves without as much as a whisper. Above his head green mashed with brown and yellow begins to bundle into more definite shapes. A tree spreads its branches like wings, with leaves quivering in the gently warm breeze, specs of sunlight filtering through dancing in between them.  
  
Then Oikawa’s double chin comes into view, that double chin that Oikawa’s selfies so carefully lack.  
  
“Remember when you still played piano?” Iwaizumi asks him, voice croaky. “I made you play that anime opening.”  
  
He feels sort of out of it, as if there is something he has forgotten and it’s nagging at the back of his mind. Dullness engulfs him, washing away the details of everything but his closest surroundings.  
  
Oikawa stares at him questioningly and, god only knows why, with a little bit of fear in his eyes. “Yeah. What about it?”  
  
Iwaizumi considers it. He doesn’t know and he says as much. The memory has slid into his thoughts unbidden but not entirely unwelcome. Oikawa bites his lip and looks up, the charming double chin disappearing. Iwaizumi misses it already.  
  
“You’re a stubborn bastard,” he says. Oikawa looks down again, a look of more than mild concern twisting his mouth.  
  
“Maybe we should call 119 after all,” Oikawa mumbles. Iwaizumi reaches out blindly and pats him on the head, though he isn’t sure he isn’t actually poking Oikawa’s eye out if the numerous ‘ouch’s are anything to go by.  
  
Iwaizumi’s eyes close again and he drifts off, slender fingers tenderly combing through his hair and lulling him.  
  
He startles when a loud smack resounds above him and Oikawa groans. Fingers disappear from Iwaizumi’s hair. He cracks one eye open to see Oikawa clutching his nose and making all sorts of whiny sounds in the back of his throat.  
  
“Sorry,” comes from somewhere to Iwaizumi’s right. Mattsun walks up and oofs when Oikawa, with as much force as he can muster, flings at him the volleyball that had hit him in the face.  
  
“Is that how you treat your former captain?” Oikawa gripes. “Hit him in the face to crook his wonderful nose when he isn’t looking?”  
  
“Boo-hoo. Make Iwaizumi kiss your boo-boos alright. You could kiss his boo-boo alright too, while you are at it.”  
  
“Gross!” Hanamaki yells from somewhere behind Mattsun.  
  
Iwaizumi doesn’t remember getting any ‘boo-boos’ but he supposes there must be a reason why he is lying down on the lawn under a tree and feeling like parts of his surroundings turn into clouds whenever he isn’t looking at them.  
  
Oikawa grumbles something more and his hand returns to Iwaizumi’s hair. The tips of his fingers are slightly calloused and soothe circles into Iwaizumi’s scalp.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Beginnings usually are the second hardest part of starting something new. It’s a testament to Oikawa’s character that no matter how many volleyballs he took to his face, he never quit. Iwaizumi was there, witnessing it all from mere centimeters away.  
  
Even though at first Iwaizumi isn’t exactly shaken by the idea of playing volleyball, there is something in Oikawa’s face when he grips the ball in his hands that lits up the hour in a way anything else rarely does. It tugs Iwaizumi to follow along as Oikawa trains wherever he can. When they are playing in odd places, when Oikawa is trying to set the ball, Iwaizumi can’t help but stare because it seems as though Oikawa becomes a different person. As though volleyball could translate Oikawa’s traits into a new, different language that defines and sharpens what is already there.  
  
By the time they go to middle school, it’s already two of them, inseparable. Oikawa and Iwaizumi, Iwaizumi and Oikawa, in and out of school, in and out of the volleyball court.  
  
Because it’s inevitable that volleyball eventually draws them both in and by the time they fully understand what’s going on they are staying well past the sundown, passing the volleyball back and forth on the playground they are getting too old for.  
  
Oikawa’s face is red from getting hit by at least five missed receives and Iwaizumi has tired of laughing at him. They are just bouncing the ball between them, playground silent save for the soft plop of the ball, counting under their breaths. Moths are circling under the lamp, casting weird shadows all over the place.  
  
Iwaizumi reaches a hundred and catches the next ball. They both breathe deeply and then look at each other. The air is chilly and filled with a fresh smell of budding spring leaves. The inside of Iwaizumi’s mouth is dry.  
  
“We are gonna get in. We are gonna play on the same court,” he says. It’s important, he knows it somehow, that he says it now, in this desolate playground a night before the try-outs for the volleyball club in middle school.  
  
Oikawa nods. That’s how Iwaizumi knows that it was important to him too, to hear it said out loud, because if it wasn’t important Oikawa would have laughed and asked why Iwaizumi is trying to sound so old and serious.  
  
And they do. They play with the team for two years. Then the third year comes.  
  
It starts small, really. Just a couple of minutes after practice, then half an hour, then two hours, then until sundown and well beyond that.  
  
Oikawa is pushing. He is pushing everything he can, putting everything into every little detail he knows he can get better at.  
  
Iwaizumi doesn’t think much of it at first. He usually stays with Oikawa, even when minutes turn into hours. He knows that when Oikawa fixates he is going to stay fixated for a while.  
  
But then Oikawa starts breaking. It’s a little crumble, barely visible; Oikawa is setting too fast, too high, too much to the left, too much to the right, his receives are too hard and go slightly out of way. The balance that usually keeps Oikawa’s play in such a good form is gone.  
  
Iwaizumi feels it. He feels it in every missed spike - the frustration that pours out of Oikawa in heavy waves. He thinks that Oikawa simply needs a little break, that he is just tired. But against all sense Oikawa just pushes himself more.  
  
“I need to fix this,” he says when asked. Except he says that about everything.  
  
That’s when Iwaizumi notices the rigidness of Oikawa’s spine whenever one of the first years, the one with permanent wonder on his face when on the court, begins to trot behind Oikawa and stare, heedful, at everything Oikawa does.  
  
It’s like a baby bird imprinting on an irked cat, really.  
  
He knows the kid is good, of course he knows. The coach makes that clear when he comments on Kageyama’s progress every week. It isn’t until that one practice match, though, when the coach says something that leaves Oikawa absolutely speechless, with red blots on his pale face, that things clear up in Iwaizumi’s mind.  
  
“Kageyama, switch out with Oikawa. Oikawa, go sit on the bench.”  
  
Iwaizumi can see Oikawa’s hands curling into fists so tightly the skin turns dust-pale. It’s just goes downhill from there.  
  
“Oikawa, for fuck’s sake, you have been serving for three hours straight.” Iwaizumi smacks the ball out of Oikawa’s hands and grips the neck of Oikawa’s shirt.  
  
It’s barely a week after the practice match.  
  
Oikawa’s nose flares, his eyes turned away. “Look at me,” Iwaizumi demands. His hands start shaking when Oikawa still avoids his gaze.  
  
“I’m fine,” Oikawa says through gritted teeth. He pushes at Iwaizumi’s hands until Iwazumi lets go.  
  
They stand in the gym, windows jet black with the falling night. Iwaizumi feels his jaw tightening. “You are going to destroy yourself. That’s what you want? You are going to get hurt and that will be it. No more volleyball. That’s what you want? No more volleyball?”  
  
He can only stare hopelessly as Oikawa turns away from him, rubbing his elbow. He takes a deep breath. “Oikawa, we are going to make a pact, you and me. That’s right, a pact, like little kids, because apparently you are still a kid and that’s the only way to deal with you. Today, we are going to promise that we will play at nationals one day, by any means necessary.”  
  
That’s when Oikawa finally looks at him, confused and, for some reason, concerned.  
  
“And that means you’ve gotta hold on for as long as possible. You are going to take care of yourself so we can play. Together, you hear me? At nationals. Promise me that.”  
  
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa starts, disbelief in his voice. He looks wobbly for a full second before something in him snaps and he straightens, the usual rotten shiny smile appearing on his face. “Are you an idiot?”  
  
Iwaizumi almost sighs in relief and then swings around, roundhouse kicking at the back of Oikawa’s knees. “Nationals, Oikawa,” he says when Oikawa falls on his ass and squawks. Oikawa rubs his backside and laughs airily. He is looking up at Iwaizumi through long eyelashes and for the first time that day he looks happy.  
  
“Yeah,” he says. “Nationals.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Grass rustles when someone kneels next to them. The sound rings in Iwaizumi’s ears and a dull, foggy pain starts to stir somewhere behind Iwaizumi’s forehead. Hanamaki asks Oikawa something and then leans over Iwaizumi.  
  
“Hey, I brought some painkillers and water if you want.”  
  
Iwaizumi tries to open his eyes and regrets it immediately when a vulcan of pain explodes in his head and starts to flood everything with lava-hot ache. He groans.  
  
“I didn’t know angels had pink hair,” he says as he takes the water. Someone drops the medicine on his hand and he swallows it right away. Ice cold water soothes the back of his throat and clears some of the pain.  
  
“Aw, Iwaizumi, are you calling me an angel?”  
  
“Hey, I bring you water too sometimes, does that make me an angel?” Oikawa asks.  
  
“You are a devil.” Iwaizumi, his eyes closed, tries to pat Oikawa’s head again, but his hand meets only thin air. He lets it drop and sighs.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Oikawa is late to practice again. Iwaizumi doesn’t even let coach ask about it before he stalks out of the gym and heads straight to the school patio.  
  
He can see it from fifty meters away - a sheaf of people gathered together tightly, Oikawa sticking out in the middle like a too long twig. There are first years there, girls from their year, and even a few third years. Iwaizumi almost growls, but then he comes closer and slows down.  
  
There is a look on Oikawa’s face. He is smiling, yes, but it’s not the sugar-sweet smile he usually presents. Instead, it’s distant, almost wistful.  
  
A girl at the edge of the group from the side Iwaizumi is approaching from giggles, and Oikawa snaps out of his weird mood. He turns to look at the girl and his eyes flit upwards momentarily, locking on Iwaizumi.  
  
If Oikawa’s expression was weird before, now it becomes just a huge puzzle. A twitch passes through Oikawa’s mouth and eyebrows lift vulnerably, before Oikawa schools himself.  
  
“Sorry, I gotta go, practice waits. Let’s talk again, yeah?” He winks and giggles once again escape a few throats.  
  
“Sorry, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa flashes his teeth at him as he jogs up to Iwaizumi. “I’m coming now.”  
  
“What was that about?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“That look. You saw me and looked like you saw a ghost.”  
  
“Can you blame me? Your face is so ugly it’s scary-” Oikawa doesn’t manage to finish speaking because Iwaizumi glares at him and Oikawa instinctively leaps an arm length away.  
  
It happens again a mere hour later. Oikawa is doing additional stretches on the side of the court and suddenly stops, looking at a blank wall with something akin to wonder. It takes an accidental ball in the head from one of the terrified first years for him to snap out of it.  
  
“Don’t mind,” he says absently as the poor first year shakes in front of him.  
  
“You alright?” Iwaizumi asks him then. Oikawa startles and his teeth glisten in a too wide smile.  
  
“Perfectly!”  
  
It’s just the beginning of Oikawa’s peculiar behaviour. He proceeds to either avoid Iwaizumi or be permanently glued to his side throughout the day. Iwaizumi catches him staring a few times, sometimes at himself, sometimes into the hollow distance. Oikawa has always been one odd apple though, so he isn’t thinking much about it, even when Oikawa starts saying things even weirder than usual.  
  
A week later Iwaizumi is sitting outside, cooling off on the steps to the gym after a particularly gruesome set of laps when Oikawa plops down next to him and offers him a bottle. His face contorts in utter offense when Iwaizumi looks at it with an eyebrow raised.  
  
“Iwa-chan, I would never! What would the team do without the ace?”  
  
“I’m never putting sadistic pranks beneath you,” Iwaizumi replies as he takes the bottle. “And I’m not the ace, Kiyamori-san is.”  
  
“Well, you’ll always be the ace of my heart.”  
  
Iwaizumi snorts. He glances at Oikawa from the corner of eye and starts laughing when he sees Oikawa’s ridiculously incredulous face.  
  
“How am I still friends with you.” He shakes his head and gets up to head back to the gym.  
  
“But making them laugh is step three,” Oikawa mumbles behind him.  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“Nothing!”  
  
When they walk back inside, Iwaizumi catches Hanamaki staring at them through narrowed eyes. Makki then tugs at Mattsun’s shirt and whispers something to him. They both watch Iwaizumi and Oikawa closely through the entire practice.  
  
Iwaizumi should have known back then that it could only mean trouble.  
  
When practice ends, Iwaizumi expects Oikawa and him will do what they always do - badmouth each other’s performances and, very quietly, discuss who on the team needs work with their technique. So when Oikawa walks up to him, face sweaty, eyes shining, he prepares himself for Oikawa-grade insults. Instead, Oikawa raises both of his arms.  
  
“Wonderful job today, Iwa-chan!”  
  
Iwaizumi stops. So does the rest of the team. To Iwaizumi’s right, Makki drops the four volleyballs he was trying to balance.  
  
“What.” Iwaizumi takes a step back. “I’m 99% certain I haven’t done badly enough today to make you mock-praise me, Oikawa.”  
  
“I-” Oikawa’s arms drop. “I just wanted a high-five. And I was praising you, not mock-praising.”  
  
“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi lets concern show in his voice. “Are you feeling alright?”  
  
“Yeah, maybe he has a fever,” Makki says. “Better check, Iwaizumi. Forehead to forehead, that’s the best way.”  
  
Oikawa blanks. He looks at Makki with suspicion in his eyes and then turns away. “I can’t believe noone on this team understands me.”  
  
“Oh, we understand you, alright.” Mattsun picks up one of the volleyballs Makki’s dropped. “I’m not sure you understand the things you’ve been reading, though.”  
  
Iwaizumi feels like a whole lot of things is flying over his head then, and it has much more to do with the way Oikawa’s face goes pale, and less with the first years trying to do last minute serving practice.  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
“Hey,” Iwaizumi catches Oikawa’s attention. He isn’t entirely sure the world should be spinning slowly the way it does, but he decides to pay it no mind. “Hey, Oikawa.”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“In the second class of high school, you used pick-up lines on me. Or tried to use them.”  
  
Oikawa splutters. “It was-”  
  
“He was reading wooing advice from the internet,” Mattsun supplies helpfully. “We swiped his phone during one water break and read the whole thing. He had it bookmarked. It was disastrous.”  
  
“Can you not?”  
  
“You started it when you typed ‘how to woo a person’ into the search bar. I checked your history, Oikawa. I know _everything_.”  
  
“This is a violation of privacy!”  
  
“You are a violation of space, Oikawa.”  
  
“Your eyebrows are a violation!”  
  
“Mattsun’s eyebrows are magnificent, you shut the hell your mouth.”  
  
Iwaizumi stops listening and gives in to the spin of the world. It remains constant like the spin of particles that build it, the rotation as unalterable as the time that coils in a never ending strand on the clock’s cogwheels. Tick of his heartbeat echoes in his ears.

  
  
***  
  
  
  
Iwaizumi startles upwards and through panicked, hazy eyes he looks at the clock - 2am. The phone next to his pillow is ringing obnoxiously. He snatches it, slides to answer the call, and opens his mouth.  
  
"What the fuck."  
  
"Hey," Mattsun says cheerfully. "So, we are going out tomorrow - or today, actually - and you need to go with us."  
  
"Matsukawa," Iwaizumi says calmly. He stares into the depth of his room doused in darkness. "It's 2am."  
  
"Hm? Oh yeah. So you wanna go, right?"  
  
"Why aren't you asleep?"  
  
"It's summer break, the only time when you can stay up all night because you want to and not because you're studying your ass off. How could anyone pass up on this opportunity?"  
  
"Hear, hear," Iwaizumi hears faintly from the other end of the line. The voice sounds familiar.  
  
Iwaizumi breathes out and smothers a yawn welling up in his throat. "What's this about?"  
  
"Okay, there is this park at the east side of the city. We're gonna meet up at 6pm tomorrow under the clock there, and then - eh, you will see. Wear something nice."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"You will see," Mattsun repeats. "6pm, clock at the park, yeah?"  
  
"Oh god, fine. Just, let me sleep. And you go to sleep too, you and Hanamaki both."  
  
"Yes, mom-" Calls end just before Iwaizumi can snap at Hanamaki, which might be a good thing. Iwaizumi lies down again and promptly falls asleep.  
  
Next morning he is half-sure he dreamt the whole thing up, but barely has 10am passed when he receives a reminder in a form of a text, and is forced to believe that late-night calls are apparently a thing for his friends.  
  
So when he is standing under the damned clock and still feeling groggy, he can only think about a good way to lecture them about the importance of a good night sleep for young minds. They are fifteen minutes late (even Matsukawa, who has never been late to anything in his life) and he has twenty really solid points listed when they finally show up.  
  
And along with them, an atypically unsure looking Oikawa.  
  
His first instinct is to ask. "You alright?" He looks at Oikawa with a frown. "You're pale."  
  
"Hello to you too," Mattsun says. Makki raises both eyebrows in Oikawa's direction.  
  
"My beauty sleep was very thoroughly destroyed yesterday," Oikawa says in lieu of an answer, glaring at Mattsun.  
  
"Stop talking and get moving, those rides aren't gonna ride themselves."  
  
"Rides?" Iwaizumi narrows his eyes. Then he looks to where Makki points and his confusion deepens. "We are going to the amusement park?"  
  
"Duh."  
  
"But- why?"  
  
"Sea is too far away, mountains are tiring, and this town is boring. Amusement park for the precious summer memories it is," Makki explains. They start walking to where the gate is glittering with colorful lights in the slowly setting afternoon sun and Iwaizumi tags along, feeling more than a little bit lost.  
  
The park is filled to the brim. By the time they get their entrance passes, the sun is even lower on the horizon and the air is slowly turning chillier. Iwaizumi gets checked in, walks past the gate, and is greeted by the sight of Oikawa standing completely alone, sticking out from the crowd moving in all the possible directions. People rush past them and sometimes jostle Iwaizumi's shoulder. Oikawa looks up from his phone when Iwaizumi reaches him.  
  
"I lost them," he says, dejected. "And they are not picking up their phones."  
  
Iwaizumi looks up to the sky and sighs.

  
  
How long have they been friends again? 8 years? 9 years? They went out, just the two of them, hundreds of times. They spent hours upon hours in each other's company.  
  
And never before has Iwaizumi felt this self-conscious.  
  
It's not anything specific. It's not anything either Oikawa or him says, and it's not anything they don't say. There is just this forcefully colorful miasma surrounding them and seeping into the conversation that breaks and starts without any sort of sense.  
  
"Do you wanna go on any ride?"  
  
Iwaizumi shakes his head. Something is eating away at his stomach and he doesn't know how to get rid of it. Acid is heating up under his ribs and icy fear climbs down his arms. He doesn't know what it's trying to tell him.  
  
They end up walking around for an hour before the lamps around brighten in the slowly setting darkness and it's like someone's flipped a switch. Oikawa takes Iwaizumi's wrist into his hand and forces them to walk quicker, weaving through the crowd.  
  
Iwaizumi can't see it very well, but there is something akin to desperation in Oikawa's face so he lets himself be towed by the anchor of Oikawa's warm, sweaty palm. Without a word Oikawa makes them go into the haunted house.  
  
Iwaizumi clings to Oikawa when a nasty looking skeleton sticks it's shiny skull out, and Oikawa makes a tiny distressed sound at the sight of a long-limbed, pale lady climbing out of the ceiling and reaching out to them with fingers that look like spider's legs.  
  
They are holding hands when they finally get out and neither really lets go.  
  
"I'd kill for cotton candy right now," Oikawa says.  
  
"What colour?"  
  
"Pink." Oikawa makes the word sound like a bell's ringing and Iwaizumi snorts. He gets them both the horridly sweet, and horridly pink cotton candy that starts to glue his fingers together instantly.  
  
"For you, sir, and for your girlfriend."  
  
"Not a girlfriend," Iwaizumi says and cringes when the candy sticks to his skin.  
  
"Not yet." The salesperson grins knowingly. "After a night like this there is no way anyone would not be charmed."  
  
'A night like this'. Iwaizumi doesn't really know what that means until he turns around and sees the low lightning of the lamps in the park, and feels the way summer air coils around, smooth on the skin of his arms.  
  
Where Oikawa is sitting on the bench under the tree, the light from the lamps barely reaches. Separated from the rest of the park, the tiny square of a tucked away resting place is almost empty, with one sole light chasing away the shadows.  
  
Oikawa nods in thanks when Iwaizumi gives him the candy and starts to rip it apart into little clouds. The sweetness melts in Iwaizumi's mouth.  
  
The wood of the bench carries a smoothed-down texture and smells of old paint.  
  
"Do you ever think," Oikawa starts, "what would it have been like if we never met?"  
  
"Different." 'Boring', most probably. "No volleyball. And less exasperating." He looks at Oikawa pointendly.  
  
"Yeah, but," Oikawa ignores his jab completely, "I wonder if I would miss it."  
  
"How can you miss-" Iwaizumi stops. He wanted to ask 'how can you miss something you never had', but it's not a good question.  
  
"You can."  
  
Oikawa stands up. He doesn't look happy, but there is some sort of calmness around him that Iwaizumi considers to be better than anything else.  
  
It dissolves when they enter the never-resting crowd again, and turns into emptiness. Iwaizumi has a question too, on the tip of his tongue, when he stops in his tracks. To their left a few people stand in front of the shooting booth. There is a huge dinosaur-like plushie sitting at the very center and, god, Iwaizumi's fingers itch.  
  
"You," he hears and he sets his jaw. Oikawa is staring at him. "You want that obnoxious thing?" Oikawa asks.  
  
"No."  
  
"You want it," Oikawa says, sounding amazed. "You Godzilla-loving-"  
  
He skips a step to the side just in time to avoid a kick to the ankle from Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi grumbles and starts to walk away, when a hand on his forearm stops him.  
  
"Wait here," Oikawa tells him and, by the time Iwaizumi finally has a chance to react, he is already requesting the rifle from the booth attender. Iwaizumi follows him, even if only for a chance to see Oikawa fail miserably because everyone knows it's impossible to win anything in those games.  
  
So it takes him a while to choke out "thanks" when Oikawa thrust the plushie into his hands barely a minute later. "How?" he asks a follow-up question. Oikawa winks, as smug as always.  
  
"I've got a good eye."  
  
"But." Iwaizumi looks between the plushie, Oikawa, and the booth where the attendant is wearing a slightly dazed expression. "How? You cheated. You must have cheated."  
  
"Did absolutely not."  
  
"Oikawa, you tell me right now-"  
  
He has to rush forward to catch up with Oikawa who starts forward, humming under his breath.  
  
They go on the rollercoaster (Oikawa’s eye are weirdly bright when they get off).  
  
They eat shaved ice (Iwaizumi steals half of Oikawa’s mango ice, because his blueberry tastes artificial. Oikawa barely protests).  
  
They sit down on a bench again and look up into the sky, discussing the strategy for the next practice match (the light pollution is strong, but a few feeble stars still shine through).  
  
By the time Iwaizumi checks his watch again, it's already nearing midnight. The hour settles fatigue all over him in an instant, ache spreading even to the tips of his fingers.  
  
"Oikawa," he says and resist the urge to stretch out the staleness in his limbs. "Let's head back. It's late."  
  
He is not tired enough to not notice the way Oikawa's shoulders go stiff. "One more ride." Oikawa looks at him with that concentration that always sends a shiver down Iwaizumi's spine and Iwaizumi finds he can't say no.  
  
He ogles the ferris wheel when Oikawa leads them there. It's tall. It's bright. Iwaizumi has no idea why Oikawa would want to ride it.  
  
"Midnight view," Oikawa explains, pulling out his phone.  
  
The turn of the wheel is slow and Iwaizumi finds himself melting a bit into the seat, the past hours of walking fully biting into his feet and back. He looks out of the window and blinks at the view of the town sparkling under the black sky. With closed eyes, he commits the sight to memory. That was what Makki said - summer memories.  
  
He finds he cannot relax. Across of him, Oikawa is shaking his leg, the unnerving ‘tap, tap, tap’ of his foot against the metal floor of the gondola resounding in the small space. It halts.  
  
"Hajime." Iwaizumi's eyes snap open and he looks at Oikawa, startled. Oikawa is biting his lips and when Iwaizumi looks down, he can see his hands are shaking. "The truth is- This is a confession."  
  
Iwaizumi lets out the breath he didn't know he was holding. He opens his mouth, but Oikawa speaks quickly.  
  
"I've been trying to figure this out for the past three months and I've come up with no other answer. I thought I shouldn't do anything about it - you're a friend. Best friend. Teammate. Seemed inapropriate to try to say anything.  
  
"But Mattsun and Makki sort of dumped this idea on me that it will be better to come clean. For the sake of- for my sake."  
  
Iwaizumi waits. Oikawa licks his lips.  
  
"I want more than what we have," Oikawa says.  
  
"Your overdramatic ass will kill me one day." Iwaizumi sighs.  
  
A burst of light from light bulbs around the gondola floods it with warm glow just as Iwaizumi reaches out and pulls at Oikawa's arm. With sudden clarity Iwaizumi sees Oikawa’s red eyes, the slightly parted, cherry-bitten lips, and mussed hair. Oikawa’s chin is smooth and soft when he touches it, Oikawa’s hair sliding through his fingers like water when he moves his hand to the back of Oikawa’s head. Somewhere out there, midnight chimes.  
  
Neither of them close their eyes until the moment their chapped lips touch, as if they couldn’t believe it's really happening.  
  
  
  
When they step out of the gondola, their fingers linked, Mattsun whoops and Makki leaps into the air. They both refuse to explain where they were the entire time, even when Iwaizumi whisks them both into a headlock. They all go to a fast food chain at 1am and stuff themselves with as much fries as they can. No one says a word when Oikawa dips his fries in a vanilla milkshake and hums Jaws theme as they all play with a tiny toy shark they got along with the kids’ special.  
  
A week later Makki wordlessly slides Iwaizumi an envelope across the desk in class. Under Iwaizumi’s questioning gaze he just gives a half-smile and nods.  
  
Iwaizumi opens the envelope, pulls out the picture inside, and blinks quickly. Makki grins when Iwaizumi ruffles his hair, and both Mattsun and Makki just raise eyebrows at each other knowingly when Iwaizumi doesn’t pay attention in class.  
  
He hangs the photo above his desk at home. In it, Oikawa and he are sitting in a brightly coloured booth at the fast food restaurant, half-eaten fries scattered on the table in front of them, and the plushie's green head is sticking out over the tabletop to Oikawa's left. They both look rugged, Iwaizumi’s shirt is crumpled, lines etched into his forehead, and Oikawa has huge bags under his eyes.  
  
They refuse to let go of each other’s hand as Oikawa tries to force a vanilla milkshake fry into Iwaizumi’s mouth.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
The pain behind Iwaizumi’s eyes dulls and dissolves enough that he can sit up. When he does, Oikawa, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa all blink up at him. Mattsun has claimed Oikawa’s stomach as a pillow, while Makki resigned himself to an arm. Under them all Oikawa looks miserably squashed, but there is a relaxed roundness to his jaw.  
  
“How did you know?” Iwaizumi asks, looking between them.  
  
“Know what?” Makki asks. Mattsun glances at Iwaizumi and lies down again.  
  
“It was obvious.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Oikawa lifts his head.  
  
“Oooh. Yeah, it was obvious,” Makki says. “You two live in each other’s heads.”  
  
“But how? How did you know?”  
  
“You just, looked at him sometimes. Like there was nothing else around you.” Iwaizumi supposes it might have been true. Even if he thought he wasn’t exactly obvious with it.  
  
“All while Oikawa stared either at your ass or your arms like half the time,” Mattsun deadpans. Oikawa squawks.  
  
“Traitor!”  
  
“Don’t worry, Oikawa, time may have passed but nothing has changed. We still love Iwaizumi and hate you,” Hanamaki says, Mattsun nodding along, his head bobbing and hitting Oikawa’s ribs. “Though, to be honest, we mostly love Iwaizumi for his biceps. Not much to like there beyond that with his prickly personality.”  
  
“True, true.”  
  
Iwaizumi’s eyes narrow. “What was that about my personality? And what the hell do you have against my arms?”  
  
“Nothing, that’s the thing. You show off those damn things like they are painted in gold and sometimes I think they are.”

  
Mattsun scratches his cheek. “To be fair though, we are not the only ones. Remember Kindaichi? I think the poor kid once almost fainted when Iwaizumi started stretching shirtless in the locker room.”  
  
“Half of the goddamn team almost fainted, Oikawa included.” Makki worms up and rubs the top of his head against Oikawa’s ribs.  
  
“As if!” Oikawa squirms. He tries to get away from Makki but Mattsun’s weight pins him down. Finally Makki just sits up, a foreboding glint in his eye.  
  
“Iwaizumi, hold his legs. Mattsun, arms.”  
  
They catch on instantly and leap to hold Oikawa to the ground.  
  
“What are you-” Oikawa’s voice breaks when Makki tickles him in Oikawa’s worst spot, just below the ribs. Oikawa trashes, laughing in distress, red in the face and unable to catch a breath. When they let go he collapses on the grass, his chest heaving. “I hate you. I hate you all.”  
  
“Do you?” Iwaizumi leans over him.  
  
“In this moment, yes.”  
  
“Shame. I was about to tell you that spending the afternoon with my head in your lap wasn’t half bad but since you hate us all…”  
  
“Thank Mattsun for that. It was his idea to bring the frisbee.”  
  
“Wouldn’t have happened if Iwaizumi was paying attention instead of gazing at Oikawa lovingly.”  
  
“Yeah, they are gross.” Makki flops back down on the grass.  
  
Iwaizumi snorts. Then the corner of Oikawa’s mouth lifts and Iwaizumi’s mood sombers suddenly; he reaches out. Oikawa takes his hand, their fingers lacing together.  
  
“Hey,” Oikawa says.  
  
“Hey.” Iwaizumi lies down next him. Fresh scent of grass surrounds him, and when a gust of wind ruffles Oikawa’s messy hair he catches a whiff of sugar-sweet coconut. He closes his eyes. Warmth spreads from where he can feel Tooru’s hand gripping his tightly.  
  
Around them students’ conversations buzz, people rushing through the campus with purpose or strolling on the alleys filled with gravel that crunches under their feet.  
  
Iwaizumi daydreams.

**Author's Note:**

> 'iwaoi going to different universities' who? 'iwaoi getting separated' where??  
> *puts on shades*


End file.
